During the winter break I finally had time to go visit some museums and exhibitions in London that I had been intending to visit. I started off visiting the Museum of Brands, which I had been introduced to when I did graphic design in college but hadn’t had the opportunity to visit. I didn’t realise how much animation history related items were in their collection, and it was fun to find them. Such as Zoetrope’s, Magic lanterns, paper peepshows as well as popular IP Felix the cat and Mickey Mouse. I do think it is a great source of inspiration when it comes to style and design and seeing how it has changed throughout the years.
I also went to the Wes Anderson: The Archives exhibition at the Design Museum, which is one of my favourite museums to visit especially when they have exhibitions on. I haven’t seen as many Wes Anderson films as I would like to have seen but I am more familiar with his works utilising stop motion and so I was looking forward to seeing some of the props and armatures. He is well known for his famous miniature models which I got to see a couple such as the Grand Budapest Hotel and the Asteroid City Train.
This week started with my 1-1 with Isobel Stenhouse where she gave me some tips for what to include in my presentation on Monday such as including my development work and what inspired my designs. The rest of the week I continued creating my turnarounds for my presentations. Then I combined everything together to create my presentation, the hardest part is that it’s meant to be only 4 minutes so I had choose what I wanted to include.
On Monday we had our presentation and it was great getting to see everyone else’s work especially the environmental people as I haven’t seen what they have been doing the entire time. I want to continue to develop my character turnarounds including animating them turning so that I can put them on Social Media. After, I also want to add some of my outcomes to my portfolio by putting them on my website.
In order to create my pitch, I had to first create a proposed project timeline that laid out the different aspects of productions and their associated expected duration. I looked at examples online to get an example of what to include and how to composite it. I used an Excel template which I customised for this project as this was my first time doing this and I wasn’t sure what to use.
Then I finished creating my Pitch Deck by following the template we were given. This feedback will be helpful for refining my pitch presentation as well as for developing my ideas as this project progresses.
Only do 3 if they’re all equally strong otherwise do less
Look at specific local UK case studies (tumbridge wells)
Have 3 fully detailed ideas for feedback before storyboarding them
Align myself with organisations such as the fire brigade
Do more character based so that people can see it happening to themselves and people they know
Make it set modern day to create urgency as people will put it off if they imagine it to be a future issue
Idea 1 What if you woke up tomorrow and insert location was blank
Flooded / on fire / drought no water
Potential idea first person perspective
Allow more time for colouring in the schedule
Sound design make scratch track and have the sound designer come in earlier on the schedule
Change resolution to be vertical
This was a good opportunity and I felt like I received some very useful feedback it was also great that some of my peers contributed with feedback and ideas as it shows that this is something that other people are interested in. My next steps would be to refine my pitch presentation ready for creative conscience, continue my research and to start generating ideas.
In this weeks session I received feedback to include 3/4 view poses for both my characters and my props as well as making the poses less stiff and more dynamic. When drawing out my poses I should include the under structure to help with the anatomy of the characters.
I started by creating my final prop sheets including a full turnaround with 3/4 views. I added a Christmas themed border and titles to the sheets to make all of the pieces feel cohesive and polished when finished. I wanted to keep the annotations because they are useful to give context of what the design is, how it is constructed, and how it should look.
I then started creating an expression sheet for the characters to accompany their character poses, I tried to focus on expressing the key aspects and traits of their personalities though their facial expressions. I feel this also gives the viewer a good introduction to the characters and a better understanding of who they are internally. I also tried to do them from different angles.
This session we spent some time going over how to present our work and what we are expected to create for our final outcomes by looking at relevant examples. The feedback that I received on my work was to once again consider them in 3D and to have less symmetrical Poses.
I started this week by drawing out my props, considering colour, textures, and perspectives. I wanted to combine some of the traditional Christmas elements or design themes with more traditional props. I think one of my weaknesses is designing props, as its difficult to create something that can be unique but grounded and believable at the same time.
Next I started to sketch out my characters in combination with my props in a variety of dynamic poses, I didn’t get to finish these before the session as I also had an Adobe course this week. But I would like to sketch out poses for each of the characters and then choose some of them to clean up.
I also thought about what I want to have as finished pieces to present that I can include in my Portfolio so that I can work to have these created for next week as it’s the penultimate session.
During November, I spent some time doing Adobe Certified Professional courses and exams in both After Effects and Premiere Pro. I spent a lot of time revising and using the online resources given to us in order to prepare for the exams and I am glad that I managed to pass both (especially as the After Effects one is known to be difficult). I really did enjoy the process of honing my skills in these software’s and would love to do more further down the line such as Adobe Animate or Illustrator when I can give them my full focus.
Because I had completed both After Effects and Premiere Pro I was able to achieve an additional Adobe Certified professional certificate in Video Design.
For my SIPS project, I tailored it to the Creative Conscience awards briefs which explore finding creative solutions to solve or improve issues such as climate change, health and wellbeing, and inclusivity. I wanted to find a way to incorporate one of these topics with animation and my interest of social media. I filled out the SIPS form for this project.
In November we had a session with Zoe about how to instil our values into our work which involved a couple of tasks that helped us identify what we value and what we contribute as an individual.
I had to identify one idea for the Sips project so I spent some time researching into both topics and considering which one would wok best. I considered which would give me more potential and resonate more with an audience to have the biggest impact. In the end I decided to go with climate change. I then went back to the original SIPS form and edited it to reflect my chosen idea. Next I started to Mind map out some Ideas for this Project related to the issues of Climate change.
To start with I looked at examples of my theme and process that already exists on social media so that I can build an understanding of what already exists and how I can create something new. I found that I really like the animated climate change stories by Greenpeace as they focus more on storytelling rather than infographics.
I got the opportunity to share some of my ideas at our session and hear from others. It was interesting seeing which topics others had chosen to focus on and how they were going to incorporate it with their practice. I also got feedback on my idea which was to get in contact with the UAL Climate Emergency Network about potential events or collaborations, think about collaborating with a sound student, It can be posted on social media by me, DPS and UAL social media accounts. I also wanted to see if there was any climate change specific animation festivals that take place around next year April / May time that I might also be able to submit to.
Then I started researching into my idea so that I can build off of factual information and use it to inform my design and plots. This way I will have a solid base for my pitch for Creative Conscience. I kept track of all of my sources of research and inspiration In this document which I will continue to build as this project develops.
I then started creating mood boards to gather images to use as inspiration as well as include in my pitch to help give the viewer an estimate at what they could expect. I looked at both real images and style inspiration from art that already exists.
I also watched some episodes of Our Planet for further inspiration. Our Planet is a British nature documentary series made for Netflix. The series is narrated by David Attenborough in collaboration with the conservation charity World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The series focuses on the wildlife and natural wonders of eight different ecosystems, and has been noted for its greater focus on humans’ impact on the environment than traditional nature documentaries, focusing around how climate change impacts all living creatures.
In order to start creating my pitch document for my SIPS project by following the guide we were given, using a template and incorporating some of the research and visuals I have found. I watched a couple of YouTube video’s about building a pitch deck and pitching to an audience to get some advice.
My next steps are to create my pitch presentation, contact the UAL Climate Emergency Network and rehearse and practice my pitch in preparation for when we share for feedback.
This weeks session we discussed what we would like to have taught to us in our tutorial session and I shared this weeks work. I received feedback to make the Santa more dominant, make them less flat in the side views, have the characters in poses that don’t look as tense.
I started this week by finishing what I wanted to achieve last week which was to experiment with the colour of the characters and their costumes. I started by drawing out each character in a neutral pose in their costumes and then experimented with different colours. As well as showing them together because I wanted them to feel cohesive in the same environment by sharing similar colour schemes. I also quickly did a version with some shadows and highlights to make them look less flat.
This week started with a 1-1 session with Isobel where she gave me some feedback on this weeks work and any advice for the weeks ahead. She gave me the advice to practice drawing realistic human figures as it will help me with anatomy and designing characters and suggested the website bodies in Motion. As for my work she liked that I had looked at the volumes of the characters and would now like to see them in more asymmetrical poses. This week we are working on costume design and hair design and so I would like to present these alongside the characters in pose.
I started by drawing out my costume designs for each of the characters as well as some updated designs for my props. I considered how they would all look next to each other, including height and shape language.
Following Isobel’s advice, I spent some time doing some quick sketches on bodies in motion to help warm up before drawing the characters in pose and in costume. I kept the duration short because I wanted to focus more on the form rather than the details. I would have liked to have done more this week but I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to work on this project.
This week we started with our session with Isobel Stenhouse to get feedback on this weeks work, I had already emailed by work to Isobel in advance of todays session so she could take a look at it. The day before our session, she responded to my email and gave me some insightful feedback on my designs.
This is a good start. You’ve used a good methodical approach, and the character of the different character, Santa and the Elf especially, are coming through, which is great. I think it’s fine to be sketchy at this stage, but I think it would be worth investing some time on volume and structure, and really thinking about the proportion of different shapes and body parts too. Doing some work on that will help improve the quality of the drawing. The best approach would be to see if you can find some good videos on that topic. Although it’s early days, it’s still good to imagine how the characters would look if turned around and how someone would model them in 3D if needed. Also think about do the characters have elbows, knees etc, as quite a few of these seem to have very straight limbs.
Isobel Stenhouse
During the session I got to see how everyone else’s projects were developing and its evident now how unique each of these projects are going to be. I had some technical issues when presenting my ideas, but Isobel elaborated on the feedback she emailed me which made it easier to understand the direction that she was coming from and it applied to everyone else as well. Going forwards I will consider the volume and 3D design of the characters to tailer it more to the game concepts of the brief. I also had some personal feedback in relation to the props to consider how to make them more unique or complex by incorporating the Christmas theme into the design.
So to start this week, I wanted to elaborate on my chosen character designs by exploring their volumes and their design from different angles.
I then started looking ahead at character outfit inspirations so that I can combine them with my character designs and pose them. I want to try and do something more original than the traditional costume designs and be more influenced by their roles and personalities. It was also good to start looking at colours, patterns and textures.
